Who's creating whom?

I wish the fundamentalists would think about this:

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

~~Anne Lamott

Analogy for Iraq

Here's a comment I found on AMERICAblog which sums it up nicely:

Imagine if I were to walk into your house with a gun, and over the next three weeks sell every possession you had, and then I sold your house, and took all that money and paid big bucks to my wife the psychologist to consult with you on the psychological problems that you started having after I invaded your house.... essentially stealing all your wealth all the while professing to be SO CONCERNED about you and your psychological problems.

That's what the US is doing in Iraq. We're stealing their oil and giving the money to American companies with connections to Bush and Cheney...we're paying their companies HUGE bucks to repair things we broke. And in reality, they're not repairing much of anything.

That's what the US is doing in Iraq.... CRIMINAL. IMMORAL. HORRIFIC.

And killing 180,000 innocent Iraqi civilians in the process.

It's beyond shameful. It really is.

Today's pessimism

The CNN website has a Quick Vote poll every day - sometimes more than once a day. On the International Edition today was this question: "Do you think the future will be better or worse than today?"

Here are the results:

Better: 34%
Worse: 66%

I must admit I voted for "worse" as well. How sad that so many people are looking to the future with so little hope.

Another Crusades

Here are a couple of paragraphs I really want you to read. They're from an article called, "Hooligans in the halls of power" by Ben Roberts.

The front page of The Washington Post of April 9th screams 'Attacking Iran May Trigger Terrorism: US Experts Wary of Military Action Over Nuclear Program.' No kidding! Well duh! I am no expert but I could have told them that. Iran is no Iraq. It is not run by one strongman on which everything depends as it did in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, making it a cake walk to dismantle. Iran is run by councils of powerful men who decide policy. Attacking such a system would unleash a most unpleasant response on America from that country, along with a firestorm of Muslim anti-American sentiment from the whole region. America would be fighting a whole region and a whole religion. This would not be another Vietnam. It would instead be another Crusades. In short a disaster.

The article goes on to make reference to a recent statement by an Iranian government official Javad Vaeedi who said of this country 'it may have the power to cause harm and pain, but it is also susceptible to harm and pain. So if the United States wants to pursue that path, let the ball roll.' When this statement was made initially the immediate response from the White House was that it was 'highly provocative.' But scant days before, the Pentagon had issued a statement that attacking Iran with mini nukes would be safe and not have too much of an untoward effect on the civilian population. Before that the Bush Administration admitted that top military planners were brainstorming scenarios for attacking Iran, even admitting that the Israelis were involved in these undertakings. Notwithstanding this, our leaders think that such a statement by Iran, a country whose borders we have breached before, is 'provocative.' Who's provoking who? One has to seriously question whether our leaders are of sound mind and body.

I'm living with a sick sense of dread about the plans to attack Iran. I agree that it will be a disaster - the kind of disaster that may well alter our lives forever.

True religion

On this Easter Sunday I want to remember once again a spiritual giant who died last week: William Sloane Coffin. You know, it occurs to me that the difference between fundamentalist and progressive religion has to do with what one considers to be the central theme of Scripture. Is the Bible primarily about purity and judgment or is it about mercy and justice? Needless to say, I hold with the mercy and justice interpretation. So did Dr. Coffin. Here are some excerpts from an article entitled, "The Legacy of William Sloane Coffin":

''Justice, not charity," was one of Coffin's constant refrains...

Coffin's contention was: ''Many of us are eager to respond to injustice, as long as we can do so without having to confront the causes of it. There's the great pitfall of charity. Handouts to needy individuals are genuine, necessary responses to injustice, but they do not necessarily face the reason for injustice. And that is why so many business and governmental leaders today are promoting charity; it is desperately needed in an economy whose prosperity is based on growing inequality. First these leaders proclaim themselves experts on matters economic, and prove it by taking the most out of the economy! Then they promote charity as if it were the work of the church, finally telling us troubled clergy to shut up and bless the economy as once we blessed the battleships."
...
''The churches have to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. But they have also to remember that the answer to homelessness is homes, not shelters. What the poor and downtrodden need is not piecemeal charity but wholesale justice." He taught that they need political action and structural change in society, not just a warm meal and a bed in a church basement.

Coffin quoted the biblical prophet Amos regularly: ''Ah, you that turn justice to wormwood, and bring righteousness to the ground. You who trample on the poor and take from them levies of grain. Hate evil and love good, and establish justice in the gate." Justice, not charity. Not trickle-down economics or faith-based social services, ''but," in Amos's words, ''let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream."

Coffin called the church to translate its moral teachings into politics: ''In Scripture, there is no purely spiritual answer to slavery; no purely spiritual answer to the pain of the poor. . . . In times of oppression, if you don't translate choices of faith into political choices, you run the danger of washing your hands, like Pilate."

I wonder when we shall see his like again. May he rest in peace and may we, who have been inspired by his words and example, go and do likewise.

UPDATE: I just found the Nation's tribute to Dr. Coffin. Here's a quote:

Active to the end, Coffin explained in one of his last interviews that, "There are two major biblical imperatives: pursue justice and seek peace." Honoring those imperatives, he campaigned consistently and loudly – even as his own health failed -- for the quick withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq.

As a World War II veteran and a passionate patriot who described his arguments with U.S. foreign policies as "a lovers' quarrel," Coffin counseled his fellow citizens that, "What we shouldn't do is to believe President Bush when he says that to honor those who have died, more Americans must die. That's using examples of his failures to promote still greater failures."

"A lovers' quarrel." I understand that for I love this country so much that it truly breaks my heart to see what is happening to it.

A new Ozymandias

If you don't know this poem about the ruins of the statue of a once extremely powerful person, it's high time you did. And I have a reason for sharing it with you:

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said -- Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Now go here and see the illustrated version. And weep.

What's wrong with the mainstream press

This:

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

~~Upton Sinclair

Bill Maher just SIZZLES!

Tulsa Interfaith Alliance sent me a great email today that's part of a Bill Maher monologue. I just have to give you the whole thing! Here it is:

And finally, New Rule: People who run everything can't complain that they're underdogs.

To whit, this week, there was a highly-attended conference in Washington called "The War on Christians." Because nothing quite says "I'm oppressed," like the opulent Regency Ballroom of the Omni Shoreham Hotel.

Ah, yes, whatever happened to that plucky little cult, Christianity? Oh, that's right, they're 80% of the American people, and have taken over all three branches of government, country music, public schools, the bestseller list, and until recently, Katie Holmes.

You know, Christians, I don't mind that you're part of a dress-up cult that hates sex and worships magic but the paranoia, that does scare me.

Did you know that the Missouri legislature recently felt the need to propose a resolution declaring Christianity Missouri's majority religion. No kidding. Really, you mean people aren't saying, "Gosh, I'd like to go to Missouri, but...too Jewish."

In Savannah, recently, a children's book about a baby penguin who is raised by two male penguins - ahh! - was removed from the library for its homosexual overtones. Because you know penguins, in those tuxedos, with the dreamy eyes. Huge fags!

The Christian right are now officially the party of paranoia.

Secularists are attacking Christmas! Gays are attacking marriage!

Liberals are attacking values! White girls are being abducted at an alarming rate!

You know, if you're going to be that paranoid all the time, just get high.

And the worst part is, the people bitching loudest about being persecuted for their Christianity aren't Christians at all.

They're demagogues and conmen and scolds. And the only thing they worship is power. If you believe Jesus ever had a good word for war or torture or tax cuts for the rich, or raping the earth, or refusing water to dying migrants, then you might as well believe bunnies lay painted eggs.

And Jesus - and Jesus never said a word about gay marriage. He was much too busy hanging out with 12 guys.

Now - now I know George Bush says Jesus Christ changed his heart. But believe me, Dick Cheney changed it back. The only thing Bush has in common with Jesus is they both went into their father's business and got crucified for it.

Thomas Jefferson called the type of Christian who trumpets his own belief in the divinity of Jesus rather than the morality of Jesus "pseudo-Christians."

And that's who's running our country today. And since they thrive so much on turning water into "whining"-and get off on their endless pretend persecution, this Easter season, let's give them what they want. Let's go to the zoo, get some lions, and feed them Tom DeLay.

Now that's good, isn't it? Happy Easter everyone!

The London Times on global warming

The London Times has published an article entitled, "Scientist Issues Grim Warning on Global Warming". Unlike those in the United States, Britain's scientists are not censored. Take a look:

The Government's chief scientist today gave his starkest warning yet about the world's increasing carbon emissions saying that even the best-case scenario put millions of lives at risk by the end of the century.

Professor Sir David King said that a 3C rise in global temperatures is likely within 100 years, a process that will lead to a rise in sea levels and increase in desertification that will place 400 million people at the risk of hunger. Parts of Britain will be flooded as the UK comes under coastal attack.

Developing countries will be the hardest hit, with ecosystems failing to adapt and between 20 million to 400 million tonnes of cereal production being lost, according to Sir David.

He said the temperature rise would be the consequence of carbon dioxide levels of 500 parts per million, roughly double those of the Industrial Revolution. The current carbon dioxide concentration stands at 380 parts per million, already the highest levels likely to have been experienced on Earth for 740,000 years.

Sir David said that his grim prediction was based on an optimistic reading of the world's ability to control its carbon emissions. Many scientists believe emissions could rise to 550 million parts per million and even larger temperature rises.

Please notice that these predictions are based on optimism about how we control carbon emissions. Are you really optimistic in this regard? I certainly am not. Not about the role of the United States government.

Heading for Iran

Go read the article entitled, "If you liked the Iraq War, you'll love the Iran War". Here's a great quote:

Bush is the amalgamation of all the hideous and sad parts of the Republican Party. He is a Republican Frankenstein. He has the temperament of Barry Goldwater, the integrity of Richard Nixon, and the brains of Dan Quayle.

And we trust this guy with his finger on the button?

God help us all if he bombs Iran. And if you think he's not that stupid, you haven't been paying attention.

The Middle East is a powder keg and Bush wants to throw a nuclear match on it. God help us all, indeed.

Howard Dean's letter to Ken Mehlman

The phone jamming scandal is simply outrageous. Here's what DNC chairman, Howard Dean, had to say about it:

April 11, 2006

Ken Mehlman Chairman
Republican National Committee
310 First Street, SE
Washington DC, 20003

Dear Ken,

Yesterday, the AP ran a story entitled "Phone Jamming Records Point to White House." This story provides new details about the role of the New Hampshire Republican Party in the phone-jamming scandal and raises serious questions as to whether the RNC and the White House were actively involved.

As you know, on Election Day, a telemarketer hired by the New Hampshire GOP jammed telephone lines at five state Democratic and one firefighters union get-out-the-vote phone banks. The AP noted yesterday that the "records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 - as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down."

The AP story also stated that virtually all the calls to the White House went to the same number (202-456-6173) which currently rings inside the political affairs office. Although the White House declined today to say which staffer was assigned that phone number in 2002, you may be able to shed some light on the subject, as you were the White House Political Director during that time.

You have often spoken of the importance of making sure that every vote counts. In that spirit, we hope that you will take the necessary steps to clear up the lingering confusion surrounding the RNC and the White House's role in this scandal by answering these questions:

* James Tobin called the White House two dozen times in three days. Whom was he calling? With whom did he speak? Whom did he work with in the office of political affairs?

* Tobin worked directly with Terry Nelson, who was then political director at the RNC. When will Mr. Nelson answer questions about his role in the scandal? Whom else at the RNC did Tobin work with?

* Did the White House authorize this phone jamming scheme and, if so, who specifically did so? Or was the phone jamming authorized by the RNC?

* Was anyone on the White House staff or at the RNC involved in concocting, authorizing, implementing or concealing this scheme?

The overt effort by the New Hampshire Republican Party to suppress the vote on Election Day in 2002 is unconscionable. The people of New Hampshire deserve an apology. And America deserves to know exactly how deeply the White House and the RNC were involved in the planning and execution of this scheme. We hope you will provide the answers we need so we can move forward together.

Sincerely,

Governor Howard Dean, MD
Chairman

I haven't seen an update on this story the last couple of days. If anyone knows any more current news about this, please leave a comment and let me know. And, by the way, the above was published in Raw Story. You can find it here.

Fanatics

This is good:

A fanatic is a person who, when he finds out his cause is lost, merely increases his efforts.

~~George Santayana

The passing of William Sloan Coffin

A spiritual giant has just died. Please take a look at the obituary in the New York Times entitled "Rev. William Sloane Coffin Dies at 81; Fought for Civil Rights and Against a War". Here's part of what it has to say:

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin Jr., a civil rights and antiwar campaigner who sought to inspire and encourage an idealistic and rebellious generation of college students in the 1960's from his position as chaplain of Yale University, then reveled in the role of lightning rod thrust upon him by officials and conservatives who thought him and his style of dissent dangerous, died yesterday at his home in Strafford, Vt. He was 81.

The cause was congestive heart failure, said his daughter, Amy Coffin. She said he had recently been under hospice care.

Dr. Coffin, a believer in the power of civil disobedience to bring social and political change, was arrested as a Freedom Rider early in the 1960's and was an early admirer of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

An ordained Presbyterian minister, he embraced a philosophy that put social activism at the heart of his clerical duties. In the late 1970's, when he became senior minister of Riverside Church in New York — an institution long known for its social agenda — he used his ministry to draw attention to the plight of the poor, to question American political and military power, to encourage interfaith understanding, and to campaign for nuclear disarmament. Courage, he preached over the years, was the first virtue, because "it makes all other virtues possible."

In his later years, he devoted himself to antiwar crusades, advocating a nuclear freeze, opposing the 1991 war in the Persian Gulf and speaking out against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. But he did not consider himself a pacifist, and when genocide broke out in Bosnia, he asserted that there were times when international intervention with force was justified.

But it was as the outspoken chaplain at Yale in the tumultuous years when the Vietnam War was escalating that Dr. Coffin's name became known across America. While he questioned the wisdom of the war almost from the start, he came only slowly to a decision to apply to this cause the same tactics of civil disobedience he had already engaged in on behalf of the struggle for integration in the South.

Yet when he did, the spectacle he created — the chaplain of an Ivy League university counseling students that they were right to resist the draft, and accepting their draft cards to be turned in to the Justice Department — so infuriated the Johnson administration that Attorney General Ramsey Clark, himself a prominent liberal, sought to imprison him.

In one of the most celebrated trials of the day, Dr. Coffin, Dr. Benjamin Spock and three others were accused of conspiracy to encourage draft evasion. Dr. Coffin, Dr. Spock and two others were convicted, but the verdicts were overturned on appeal. The case became a cause célèbre for the antiwar left and civil libertarians, who considered the prosecution's eventual failure an incomplete vindication of the right of free speech.

Here's something Dr. Coffin said as recently as 2003 that is worth pondering along with the Deepak Chopra quote I posted below:

Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race...Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports — one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all.

May he rest in peace and may light perpetual shine upon him.

The toxic effects of nationalism

My dear friend Sally Lloyd sent me the following this morning:

The toxic effects of nationalism

The illusion is that nationalism helps to free people.
The reality is that nationalism is now the same as militarism.

The illusion is that other nations are inferior, misguided and wrong in their ways.
The reality is that every nation struggles with inner conflicts.

The illusion is that God favors one country and supports its destiny.
The reality is that God has never expressed an opinion about any nation and never will.

The illusion is that national boundaries make us secure.
The reality is that we live in an open world where boundaries mean less and less.

The illusion is that your country defines who you are.
The reality is that finding out who you are requires self-searching and self-knowledge.

Deepak Chopra — Peace Is The Way

The Brits and creationism

Here's some good news from across the pond as reported in a Guardian article entitled, "Royal Society attacks teaching of creationism as science":

The Royal Society yesterday issued a strongly worded attack on the teaching of creationism as a leading scientist compared it to the theory that babies are brought by storks.

The warning from Britain's leading scientific academy comes amid increasing concern over the attempts by religious fundamentalists to challenge the theory of evolution in schools and colleges by teaching the idea that a god created the world, as if that were a scientific theory.
...
Last night, the Royal Society gave a public platform to Steve Jones, the award-winning geneticist and author, to deliver a lecture entitled Why Creationism Is Wrong and Evolution Is Right. Professor Jones said that suggesting that creationism and evolution be given equal weight in education was "to me, rather like starting genetics lectures by discussing the theory that babies are brought by storks."

The Royal Society had invited Prof Jones, of University College London, to deliver a lecture at its headquarters in London because of concern that many students now believe that creationism and evolution are equally valid theories. An increasing number of Christian and Muslim fundamentalist students argue for a literal interpretation of the Bible or Qur'an. Prof Jones said that a Gallup poll of teenagers in the US last year indicated that 38% believed that God created humans within the past 10,000 years and President George Bush had said that "on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth." In a BBC poll; 48% opted for evolution and 39% for creationism.

"I like the quotation from Darwin, 'ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge; it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science'," said Prof Jones. "Science has proof without any certainty, creationists - certainty without proof."

He said he believed that creationists were worried that evolution showed humans to be only "chimps in dinner jackets". He added that "evolution is as inevitable as gravity".

I too am troubled by news organizations who believe they are balanced when they present "both sides" as if the two sides in question are always equally valid. The comparison between creationism and the belief that the stork brings babies is a good one. Let's hope someone on this side of the Atlantic pays attention.

I love it!

Check this out:

If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in bed with a mosquito.

~~ Anonymous

"L'etat, C'est Moi"

"I am the State." In case you don't know, that's what Louis the 14th said when the President of the Parliament spoke in the interests of the State. It seems that is George Bush's attitude. Here is an article entitled, indeed, "L'etat, C'est Moi" that says we are now essentially in a dictatorship. Here is an excerpt:

[T]he Bush NEI leak rationale follows an all-too-familiar theme: Bush cannot break the law, because Bush is the law. He can't leak a document, because if he says it's OK to release the document it's therefore by definition not a leak. Just like torture is illegal except when George says it's not. Or warrantless domestic wiretapping is illegal, except when he authorizes it.

Bush and the people around him appear to have genuinely believed, for at least the four and a half years since 9-11, that the President by definition is incapable of breaking the law. On his sole authority laws can be ignored, overridden, or changed. Even implicitly. Even retroactively, as when some unappetizing piece of this puzzle inadvertently comes to the public's attention.

Combine this with an administration more intent on secrecy and lack of transparency than any other in U.S. history, and you have a recipe for, well, a dictatorship. Which is exactly what it appears Bush and company believe they are operating in. Oh, of course, in normal times America is a democracy, but these aren't normal times, are they? Why? Because we're at war. Why are we at war? Because the President said so. How long will the war last? Several generations. After that, presumably, the Constitution will be in force again, and Congress and the courts can re-convene if they like.

Dictatorship.

The writer concludes this way:

[W]e might as well cancel that 2008 presidential election and be done with this farce we call an electoral process. Sooner or later, should Bush go unpunished, somebody in power is going to try to do exactly that sort of thing. When they do, they'll cite national security and the need for stable and experienced political leadership in a time of war, and when they do, they'll cite the precedents set by George Bush and permitted by the Congress, courts, and American public of his day. And our country's long, mostly successful experiment in representative democracy will be over.

Perhaps it already is.

Perhaps, indeed.

Election corruption

I really recommend that you take a look at the article I'm sharing with you today. It's called, "Phone-Jamming Records Point to White House". Here's how it gets started:

Key figures in a phone-jamming scheme designed to keep New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002 had regular contact with the White House and Republican Party as the plan was unfolding, phone records introduced in criminal court show.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002 — as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.

Here's an excerpt from later on in the article:

A GOP campaign consultant in 2002, Jayne Millerick, made a 17-minute call to the White House on Election Day, but said in an interview she did not recall the subject. Millerick, who later became the New Hampshire GOP chairwoman, said in an interview she did not learn of the jamming until after the election.

A Democratic analysis of phone records introduced at Tobin's criminal trial show he made 115 outgoing calls — mostly to the same number in the White House political affairs office — between Sept. 17 and Nov. 22, 2002. Two dozen of the calls were made from 9:28 a.m. the day before the election through 2:17 a.m. the night after the voting.

There also were other calls between Republican officials during the period that the scheme was hatched and canceled.

Prosecutors did not need the White House calls to convict Tobin and negotiate the two guilty pleas.

Whatever the reason for not using the White House records, prosecutors "tried a very narrow case," said Paul Twomey, who represented the Democratic Party in the criminal and civil cases. The Justice Department did not say why the White House records were not used.

Sounds like it's possible to me that the prosecutors are protecting the White House. I don't know, with everything else this White House has done it's not much of a stretch to imagine that they would happily stoop to this level.

Good words

I've admired Hildegard for many years. I didn't know until today that she said this:

Even in a world that's being shipwrecked, remain brave and strong.

~~ Hildegard von Bingen

Bush needs to get religion!

Well, it's a rabbi who said it and he's making the point that far from being too religious, Bush is not religious enough because he doesn't really take seriously the true teachings of authentic religion. The article is entitled, "George, please tell me, would you consider becoming religious?" and here's an excerpt:

I cannot read of what Bush and his administration have done in these five years without hearing the voices of the Torah, the prophets and Jesus reminding him and us that we as individuals and as a society can and should do better.

When President Bush makes countless executive decisions in which he sacrifices environmental concerns to the interests of particular industries, I hear the voice of Genesis. It is in the first book of the Bible that, after creating the man and placing him into Eden, God announces to us our species' job description. We are here to tend this global garden.

When President Bush pressures Congress to eliminate or limit a whole range of social and legal services designed for those who are in need, I hear the adamant voices of Moses and the prophets. For Moses, walking with God means taking care of the widow, the orphan and even the stranger who live among us. It means opening our hands widely to the poor. It means establishing a legal system and a civil administration which is neither influenced by money nor class.

For the biblical prophets, God judges a society, not on the basis of its martial triumphs, influence or wealth, but on how the powerful treat the powerless. For the prophet, a society is known by how the weakest live. For an Isaiah or a Jeremiah, a society's growth or decline is dependent upon the seriousness with which a ruler takes his social responsibility to the poor and the disenfranchised.

I wonder what it would take to penetrate the president's defensive barriers enough for him to take on board what real religion is all about?